


Nightshade

by RavenHearted



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 08:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4619283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenHearted/pseuds/RavenHearted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse into the life of the enigmatic hero through her use of nightshade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightshade

Most know nightshade as vibrant violet flowers, simple in their beauty and appearing as harmless as most flowers do. Their colorful petals decorate the rolling fields in the heartlands, waving in the wind as if to greet each humble traveler that passes by, sweet, innocent. 

And as any traveler worth their salt knows, the most beautiful, fascinating things are often the most deadly. 

The purple petals hide the poison that lingers within.It is a toxin so potent, it leaves stronger men with vivid hallucinations of fantastical things floating in the trees. The others it kills so quickly they die dreaming of blissful things that only their eyes can see. An odd sort of mercy that Aria always afforded her victims before they met the sting of her arrows or the bite of her sword, coated with a special nightshade blend. 

Was it sentiment? The fascinating duality of the poison of death and life of flowers in bloom? Aria herself did not know, but from within, guilt always clawed at her heart. It raked its sharp talons deep into her flesh until she held the flower in her palm after a kill. When dawn came, there would be no trace of her, save the victim, lying with eyes closed, hands folded on their chest, with a single, purple nightshade blooming from their cold palms. 

As the years passed, it became her calling card. None knew who she was or what she looked like. A ghost perhaps, some vengeful spirit come to smite the unlucky. All that was known was that the flower meant she had paid them a fatal visit. It became such common practice, she left it in place of a stolen item. It could mean anything to anyone, the true significance lost on anyone but her. 

For the hunted marks, it was a humble apology. _No hard feelings. Just business. I’m sorry you had to get caught up in this._ Only for the truly deserving victims was it more of a mockery, a sign that she could overpower even the most brutal, disgusting people. Death did not discriminate. On rare occasions, she left them for those who did not die by her hand as a sign of respect or a sentimental symbol of grief. Overall, it was a sign she had been there, for one reason or another. 

When the adrenaline pumped through her veins as she crept beneath the world in the sewers and tunnels, she held one in her pockets, safe from the grime. She could feel her heart pound against her chest with sheer excitement when she aimed the one and only arrow-shaped key at its lock and fired. Though blind, she feared the monks would hear her frantic pulse as she held the precious scroll in her hands, and gently placed the flower on the table in its place. 

On one rainy night within the walls of the Imperial City, soaked to the bone and feeling as grey as the sky, the city guard dragged her away from the long vacant house. It had been a trap for them, and she the bait, but it was lost to their ideas of justice. The one body still inside, too mutilated to be recognizable, was not afforded her simple tradition and lived on as regret. One nightshade would have meant acceptance, for the one who was ready to move on, and the other who was not. The raindrops mingled with her tears. 

Within the bowels of the earth, behind boarded doors in a place forgotten by all but those who were privy to the dark secrets of the underworld, she stood holding seven flowers in her trembling hands. The halls were silent, once filled with life, laughter, and the feeling of a family she had always longed for. Odd, for a group of murderers, but she had never felt like she belonged anywhere else. That was past now, as all good things were. Lying cold, silent, like their victims, and by her own hand. As she laid a flower within their hands, the whisper of forgive me fell on deaf ears. 

In respect, she laid a wreath of them beside the fresh grave of her speaker. She did not know him well, or for very long, but she was his protégé, earning his trust where others had none. No one deserved the fate he had, so gruesome that it made her sick. Respect was all she could give, for it was all she felt for her mysterious mentor, and perhaps that was all he needed. 

Few knew why Aria’s flowers appeared in the places they did, as enigmatic as the woman herself. It was even more perplexing then to see a large amount of them covering the base of the mighty stone dragon in the heart of the city, where once upon a time, the world was forever changed. They lie here, mourning what was lost and what could have been.

**Author's Note:**

> Aria is one of my favorite oc's and is perhaps the best developed, and yet is the one I've wrote the least about. I think some of it is mostly my low self-esteem when I comes to sharing my writing.  
> I felt like doing a little drabble about the various reasons why she leaves a nightshade flower on her own victims or those she did not kill/steal from, but felt they deserved some kind of respectful gesture. Also, to serve as a bit of a character study.


End file.
